Densho Digital Archive
Oregon Nikkei Endowment Collection
Title: George Hara Interview
Narrator: George Hara
Interviewer: Loen Dozono
Location:
Date: February 5, 2003
Densho ID: denshovh-hgeorge_2-01-0024

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LD: Well, there were a couple of things that I was thinking about asking, one about his feelings on this, visiting Hiroshima. You didn't really elaborate on that. I didn't know if there were any particular emotions or your reaction.

GH: I had the experience of being one of the first GIs that went there by myself, not in the investigating, you know, the condition, the radioactivity and all that sort of thing, but I was one of the earliest ones, and I got there late in the day. By the time I got there, they had cleared and made some of the streets passable, and I came across a gentleman with a bicycle. And in Japanese, I told him I wanted to see this person living in the outskirts in the village and wondered how I can get there. And he knew exactly where this place was and he accounted for, you know, showed me the way about four, five blocks to one little electric trolley that was still functioning. And I thanked him profusely and offered him some k-rations or something that I had. He refused that, and he was almost apologetic that Japan had started the war and that maybe this was, he was getting punished. But the thing that stood in my mind was that after having seen all these other horribly leveled cities, Hiroshima, one goddamn bomb did the whole, you know, thing, and it was beyond my imagination. I even drew a picture of that, and it stayed with me, and the fact that they bombed Nagasaki after that was something that I always felt was wrong. But the people there, you know, they didn't come after you because American airplanes had dropped that bomb. They thought they started the war. Maybe this was God's way of punishing them, repentance, I guess, and those were added to the Japanese population in general. And the willingness to sacrifice and build up Japan again, they were building a new, forming a new constitution. The Emperor's image was completely turned over. The zaibatsu was being, you know, busted up, and they were just digging to get a foothold. And some of the things I remember doing, a lot of young people and even older people by the Tokyo eki, Tokyo station, and there were shoe shine, you know, and you pay them a little bit, and they shine your shoe, and they earned enough money to get by. Now I went back to Japan with Yone, postwar, we went by eki, the shoeshine fellow was there. I stopped again, and this older gentleman was polishing my shoes, and we struck up a conversation, "Where are you from?" I said I was American. "Oh," I said, "I was here during the war occupation, shinchuugo." "Oh," he said, "I was young, I was shining shoe." And he said, "I still remember and can taste the chocolate candy that the GIs gave us," you know, and he just was polishing my shoe and very proud of the fact that he was one of the older master shoe shiner. He had a badge. And the other thing I enjoyed in Japan besides all the wine and dine stuff was just going to the old fashion hot spring areas that were still intact. And I think those were things my mother might have experienced at one time or another, and they were outstanding.

<End Segment 24> - Copyright © 2003 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.